Theodor de Bry, German, born Liege, - Quomodo and Qua Ratione in Hostium Manus Incidierim. (from book, Americae, part - 1592 - T-Shirt

This copperplate engraving shows native warriors seizing European travellers on a shoreline, caught at the moment of capture.

Visual Elements & Composition

The plate is a wide horizontal panorama printed in dark brown ink on cream paper, with sepia-brown shading filling most of the scene. Armed warriors dominate the foreground landing, and canoes lie beached on the shore while rowers push off on the left. A fortified settlement sits on an island, with European ships or a fort on the distant shore, and birds cross the sky above. The Latin caption, Quomodo & qua ratione in hostium manus inciderim, runs along the plate and tells you what the image is about: how, and by what means, one falls into enemy hands.

Meaning & Symbolism

Theodor de Bry, a Flemish-German engraver active in the late sixteenth century, published this plate in his Americae series in 1592. The series gave European readers their main pictorial image of the New World, and this scene presents the Atlantic crossing as a sequence of dangers: the unknown coast, the armed defenders, and the sudden loss of control. The composition frames contact through vulnerability, showing travellers overwhelmed on the very ground they came to explore.

On the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

A horizontal panorama reads best when it can be seen whole, so the wide engraved landscape wraps across the front of the tee, with the warriors and canoes drawing the eye toward the centre of the chest. The fine line work rewards a closer look, and the scene is meant to be read at arm's length, the way a reader would hold a plate from a book.